WFMS is a web-based ECM program which conforms to government standards for document management systems in state institutions.
It is developed for large businesses and state or regional government institutions. A highly scalable system, it consists of a web application, a number of web services and a few Windows GUI applications. It provides:
- processing of thousands of documents electronically;
- cataloging and quick search features in document inventory;
- scanning with automatic upload of the paper documents;
- import of digitally signed documents from third parties certified by the government application for digital signing;
- generation of documents in PDF format;
- elaborate work-flow engine;
- email exchange of documents with similar systems;
- sophisticated security and logging mechanism.
A few Windows NT Services included in WFMS provide for “gateway interoperability” with other similar systems by automated electronic exchange of documents between different systems via email in accordance with government standards.
Workflow features include approving / rejecting / rework, documents versioning, check in / check out of documents and so on. There are document assignment and classification features which conform to government standards.
Security features are complex, roles and groups based. E.g. a document can be viewed by
- owner/creator;
- users with “view all” permission;
- users from departments that document is assigned to;
- users who are involved in “workflows” for document.
Documents can have attachments (any files with “description” and “number of pages” properties) and be “linked” with other documents.
Document in the system can be created in different ways and from different sources:
- uploaded in browser;
- from queue of received documents in “gateway”;
- from queue of scanned documents;
- so-called “icon substitutive” – for documents, which exist only on paper, but require to be registered too.
Documents can be either Internal or Incoming or Outgoing.
There are many features dealing with document registration, and assigning registration # and other registration attributes. Most of document properties can not be changed after document has been “officially registered” or “closed”, e.g. the document can not be checked out, new version can’t be created by check in, etc.
Any document has many mandatory properties (in accordance with government standards) whose values must be set by user on each stage of document’s “life cycle” – depending on document source and type.
Microsoft certified and recommended this system as a product that uses best industry programming practices for .NET.